


Keep Dragging them Down

by Goodluckdetective (scorpiontales)



Series: Dust to Dust [12]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Angst, Coda, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-11
Updated: 2016-06-11
Packaged: 2018-07-14 12:18:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7170761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scorpiontales/pseuds/Goodluckdetective
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is what the Wardens know when the dust of Adamant has settled and their reputation is ruined: The Hero of Ferelden is back. </p>
<p>This is what they don’t know: what their actions have truly cost them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Keep Dragging them Down

Two months after they are banished from Orlais, one month after they arrived at Weisshaupt, Warden Commander Brosca arrived at the gates.

They were surprised to see her, a legend thought dead. When she’d left to find a cure for the Calling, most had thought her mad, and when she hadn’t returned for a period, they’d assumed her lost to whatever false leads she could find. Seeing her at the gate, whole and intact, was like watching the Herald close rifts, one of the Recruits thought, looking down from one of the towers. A Savior to patch their order back together.

“Oh Maker,” one of the older Wardens said from behind the Recruit, a mage with dark hair. Bethany, the Recruit remembered. “She looks terrible.”

The Recruit peered forward, trying to get a better look. She looked fine to them. A little stern, perhaps, a scowl on their face, but that was to be expected given recent events. The shield on her back looked dented, it had to be old, but she showed no visible wounds. Her dog, grey haired, stood tall at her side.

“What do you expect,” one of the other Warden’s said. The Recruit didn’t know their name. Some Ex-Con from Orlais. Noble type. “Her husband just croaked.”

The Recruit visibly flinched as the room got a degree colder. The other Warden yelped, his boots now covered in ice. It seemed he had yet to learn his lesson when it came to living with mages: if you upset them, they could make your life hell.

“We should have let you rot in that cell,” Bethany said. The Recruit wondered if any of the rumors about her when she first joined were true. It was hard to picture the mage as soft spoken and gentle. Her entire demeanor spoke of the force magic she commanded. The other Warden stomped off. “Speaking about Alistair-” She let out a long sigh. “He was a good man.”

The Recruit believed her. They’d heard nothing bad about Alistair inside the Wardens, at least, nothing bad from the men he actually commanded. He was said to be kind, but firm, smart, but not terribly in your face about it. A good man. It was an apt description.

The Recruit looked back down at Warden Commander Brosca. They’d walked through the gates now, and everyone had given her a large berth as she walked. One of the other Ferelden Wardens, Surana, ran up to them and spoke a word. After a second, Commander Brosca nodded.

Surana took out his staff, and slammed it on the ground, the sound echoing through the fortress. Commander Brosca shot him a look and began to sign, her hands moving at a slow pace. Surana, keeping a close eye on her hands began to translate. His voice echoed throughout the tower with the magic to strengthen it.

_“Wardens. This is Warden Commander Brosca of Ferelden. In light of recent events, I have arrived to meet with the rest of the heads of the Order to discuss the subject of reform.”_

A pause.

_“I did not come here to make a speech, but since it is expected of me, I will do so if only to get people to stop asking. For the last decade, I have spent my life searching for an end to the Calling. A solution for the taint that burns through all of us and takes us before our time. This quest has taken me around Thedas, to places far from my home, to lands almost uncharted on my map. I have been to the Deep Roads,  the places where my people crumbled, to look for answers. Living ruins above ground. And I have not found my answers.”_

A longer pause, this time from Brosca, whose hands stopped signing for a moment. The Recruit could see her take a deep breath before she started again.

_“In my journey, I have been accompanied by many men and women, mostly Wardens, some not. Sometimes, when the days got long, they would ask me if this mission was worth it, this search for a Cure that might not exist. If we were better off spending our remaining time as content as we could. And every time, one of my companions, had the same answer. That for the people of our order, sacrificing our own time and happiness was worth it.”_

Commander Brosca reached up to grab something around her neck. The Recruit recognized it as a ring. After a second, the Commander began to sign again.

_“You knew this companion as Warden Alistair. You may know him as a friend, as a commander, or just a fellow Warden. I myself knew him as a husband. And throughout all our adventures, whenever we thought of giving up, he would always push us on. For we had to save you all. One last accomplishment for the Bards to tell, he told me. For the Wardens were worth it.”_

She signed something else. Surana seemed to flinch and when spoke next, it was not with the magic to amplify his voice. Commander Brosca nodded. Signed it again, face stern. And Warden Surana cleared his throat and spoke, his voice seeming to shake the fortress.

_“He was wrong.”_

The Recruit’s hand flew over their mouth. Behind them, Bethany didn’t even flinch, just gritting her teeth. The Commander continued to sign.

_“He was wrong because the Order he believed in, the Order we both believed in, was not worthy of our sacrifice. They were not worth the sacrifice of our time, the sacrifice of our few restful hours. This Order, let itself be taken over by a madman with a breath of fear. This Order decided to raze an army of demons without a thought what those demons could do once they all perished. This Order almost destroyed a world out of fear and cowardice, fooled by a magic trick.And this Order, this Order were we are suppose to be sister and brother, killed each other in cold blood for a ritual we couldn’t prove worked!”_

Brosca signed some more, and the Recruit watched as Surana’s expression darkened. When he translated next, his voice was full of loathing.

_“Let me ask you, did any of you consider that Orzammar might not let you pass with an army of demons, that you might have destroyed a people with your madness? Did any of you consider that the men and women often brought to the rituals weren’t of human blood? Did any of you notice as you stood in Adamant that most of you left standing were humans of noble houses? Or did that not matter to you?”_

The resulting silence among the fortress was horrific. The Recruit thought of their own origins. Noble blood. Human. Joined willingly last year. They then thought of other recruits during their time, recruits with them in Orlais. The surface dwarf with a high pitched laugh. The poor woman from the big cities. The Dalish elf. When was the last time the Recruit had seen them?

It was with a sense of dread that the Recruit realized they hadn’t seen them for months.

_“I don’t want an answer to those questions: none of them will satisfy me.”_ Surana was translating again. _“I just want you to know this. The Order I joined, the Order that fought the Blight, the Order that stood tall to defend the world, was worth my efforts. The Order I find now, the order that has eaten itself whole, was not. And that is the Order I see today.”_

Commander Brosca took off her shield. Threw it on the ground. It was old, decades likely. Had to be passed down from a former Grey Warden. She signed one last thing before stalking off. Surana waited until she entered the fortress to translate it.

_“I am sorry my husband was forced to see what you had become.”_

The Recruit watched as Surana walked away from the shield, following Commander Brosca inside.

The shield stood in the middle of the Courtyard, untouched, until nightfall. 


End file.
